As much a flavour as a food, the versatile cucumber has a convert in gardener Mark
Diacono

My father had a long list of things that elicited the same swift dismissal: “I like them but they don’t like me.”

It is consolation of a kind, therefore, that he died before a day dedicated to the most expeditious bringer-on of his indigestion – the cucumber – was instigated. That National Cucumber Day should fall on his birthday is an irony that would have led him to apprise me once again, and at length, of its lack of merit.

Not that I would have argued much while he was alive. Until a few years ago I saw cucumbers as water pretending to be a plant: insubstantial, unsustaining. It took a lunchtime in the St John restaurant in east London – admittedly with the benefit of a full stomach and a busy liver – to prod me out of my indifference. Something as simple as a jug of water with fat wedges of cucumber bobbing in it was as refreshing as anything I could remember.

It woke me up to the fact that cucumbers are as much a flavouring as a food in themselves. And it made me inquisitive about growing them.

The following year I grew a range of varieties, and in the years since I’ve found that without fail my home-grown cucumbers have a finer texture and flavour than any I’ve bought. Cucumbers are, apparently, 95 per cent water, but that other five per cent is crammed with vital minerals, potassium, vitamins and, most importantly, flavour – and picking them at their peak gives you their best in taste and texture.

Two varieties have particularly shone over the years: 'Marketmore’ and 'Crystal Lemon’. Others can be very good, but for reliability and flavour 'Marketmore’ tops the green varieties, while 'Crystal Lemon’ is something else altogether. Round-to-oval and yellow, it is as beautiful as it is cool, crisp and delicious. If you’re unconvinced about cucumbers, this is the one to try, thinly sliced and dusted with salt and pepper. For something a little more adventurous, there’s Diana Henry’s smashed cucumber recipe, in which peeled, deseeded cucumber is bashed to bits and mixed with salt, crushed garlic, pickled ginger and leaves of shiso or mint, to serve as an ice-cold accompaniment to Asian dishes .

National Cucumber Day, on June 14, is too late to start cucumbers off from seed – sowing in March and April gives enough time to grow and fruit – but starting with seedlings in late May allows you to catch up if you’ve missed out on the initial vulnerable stages of growth. Try Organic Plants (organicplants.co.uk) for top-quality young plants.

With luck, water, an occasional high-potassium feed and the magnificent summer we are (I’ve decided) about to experience, you could be picking cucumbers from late July. If you have space to grow them under cover in a greenhouse or polytunnel, you are likely to get an earlier and more reliable harvest than with those grown outside, but cucumbers usually produce well in a sunny spot.

Most varieties will happily scramble across the ground, but if you give them a structure to clamber up (tying the stems to it here and there to make their life easier), the fruit will ripen more quickly in the light. The breeze will also reduce the likelihood of mildew that can trouble them in poorly ventilated conditions.

Forage for borage

Use borage flowers in salads and drinks

There are other sources of that cool, fresh flavour that have an even longer season than cucumbers.

Having intentionally grown borage once, it now seems to have acquired an access-all-areas pass. It pops up as and where it fancies. A gorgeous early riser in spring, with beautiful star-shaped flowers, borage provides an early playground for the first of the bees.

For me, borage’s wild self-seeding is perfect: every spring it will add early colour and punctuation somewhere new. Any that appear where I’d rather they didn’t are as easy to pull as my dad’s leg. Their early spring showing lasts through summer into late autumn – a few of ours even clung on in sheltered spots through this year’s pretend winter.

There is no shortage of uses to which they may be put – the flowers (which come in white or blue) are really good in cocktails, either floating on the surface or bobbing semi-submerged like the proverbial iceberg having been frozen in ice. Drop a single fresh flower in each compartment of the ice tray, half-fill with water, freeze, then top up and freeze again – this keeps the flower in the centre of the cube. The young leaves and flowers carry a gentle cucumber flavour – try them in salads and in Pimm’s. Don’t worry about picking too many – the more you pick, the more the plant produces.

Although borage can be sown direct in April, it’s not too late to sow some for a mid to late-summer flush of flowers. A sunny, well-drained site is ideal, but in my experience borage will grow just about anywhere with reasonable light levels. Allow 20in (50cm) between plants.

Salad burnet

A peculiarly underappreciated herb, salad burnet is a with its small, oval, saw-edged leaves, it remains quietly productive all year in a semi-shady spot within my perennial garden. From spring into summer, the young leaves are tender enough to take their place in a mixed-leaf salad, becoming more of a herb as the year progresses – wonderful thinly sliced or in drinks, where it lends its distinctive cucumber flavour beautifully. Plants are available from numerous suppliers, as are seeds, which should be sown in spring or autumn, before being potted on prior to planting out.

If you know anyone who grows salad burnet (gerroff!), plants can also be divided. It grows well in containers, which makes it ideal for lovers of that cucumber flavour without the space (or inclination) to grow cucumbers.

It prefers a sunny or partially shady location in a reasonably well-drained soil. Salad burnet needs little maintenance – an occasional pruning back of flowering stems encourages new growth, but do leave some flowers, as they are particularly beautiful.

Salad burnet leeds little maintenance

With my father at least partly in mind, I’ve come up with a cocktail that would have left him incapacitated by indigestion, rather than by pleasure, as it does me. It is about as refreshing as a drink gets – see my recipe for a cucumber martini.

Cucumber Martini

With my father at least partly in mind, I’ve come up with a cocktail that would have left him incapacitated by indigestion, rather than by pleasure, as it does me. It is about as refreshing as a drink gets – see my recipe for a cucumber martini.

This martini really hits the spot at the end of a hot day working (or idling, for that matter) in the sun. The lovage may sound an odd addition, but I promise, it pairs with cucumber perfectly.

Serves 1

5 tbsp cucumber juice

5 tbsp vodka

3 tbsp sugar syrup (see below)

Juice of ½ lime

A good pinch of lovage seeds, ground (optional, but fabulous)

A few borage flowers (optional)

Method

All the ingredients should be completely cold – keep the vodka in the freezer and chill everything else well before making the cocktail.

To get your cucumber juice, push a cucumber through a juicer or, if you don’t have one, blitz it in a blender then strain through muslin.

For the sugar syrup, dissolve 150g of caster sugar in 150ml water in a pan over a low heat, stirring constantly, then simmer for one minute. Allow to cool, then chill.

Shake all the ingredients together, with a little crushed ice if you like, and serve. And get ready to make another, because you’ll want one. A few floating borage flowers add beauty and a little extra nibble of cucumber.